Ours Not To Reason Why By Michael Kinsley

“But let’s pretend we actually do have some role in deciding whether our nation goes to war. How should we go about it when our leaders don’t come PR-ratified by democracy and when crucial information for an independent decision is unavailable to us? We aren’t capable of answering the actual questions at hand: Is Saddam Hussein an imminent threat to our national and personal security, and is a war to remove him from power the only way to end that threat? So, we must do with a surrogate question: Based on information we do have and issues we are capable of judging, should we trust the leaders who are urging war upon us?

The answer to that last one is easy. The Bush administration campaign for war against Iraq has been an extravaganza of disingenuousness. The arguments come and go. Allegations are taken up, held until discredited, and then replaced. All the entrances and exits are chronicled by leaks to the Washington Post. Two overarching concepts?